Introducing Collaboration in Single-user Applications through the Centralized Control Architecture

In this paper we describe a novel Model-View­ Controller based architecture, Centralized Control, that intro­duces collaboration in single-users applications. The architecture is able to add collaboration with no need to modify the source code of the original single-user application, and providing also the capability to introduce group semantics into the new, collab­orative application that is obtained. The architecture is shown in practice, by introducing CollabXMind, a collaborative mind map tool, that is based on a well-known single-user tool, XMind

Collecticiels : Neuf Degrés de Couplage

National audienceCet article porte sur le couplage des activités collaboratives et vise à étendre sa définition existante à travers une démarche expérimentale et exploratoire. En effet, nous faisons l'hypothèse que le couplage est caractérisé par neufs degrés répartis dans un espace à deux dimensions. Pour cela, nous adoptons le point de vue de la multimodalité pour aborder cette notion pour des systèmes interactifs multiutilisateurs. Aussi, nous avons développé deux applications, dont l'une est détaillée dans cet article, pour mener nos expérimentations afin de mettre en évidence l'existence de ces neufs degrés. Cette première phase expérimentale semble confirmer une partie de nos hypthèses

The application of workflows to digital heritage systems

Digital heritage systems usually handle a rich and varied mix of digital objects, accompanied by complex and intersecting workflows and processes. However, they usually lack effective workflow management within their components as evident in the lack of integrated solutions that include workflow components. There are a number of reasons for this limitation in workflow management utilization including some technical challenges, the unique nature of each digital resource and the challenges imposed by the environments and infrastructure in which such systems operate. This thesis investigates the concept of utilizing Workflow Management Systems (WfMS) within Digital Library Systems, and more specifically in online Digital Heritage Resources. The research work conducted involved the design and development of a novel experimental WfMS to test the viability of effective workflow management on the complex processes that exist in digital library and heritage resources. This rarely studied area of interest is covered by analyzing evolving workflow management technologies and paradigms. The different operational and technological aspects of these systems are evaluated while focusing on the areas that traditional systems often fail to address. A digital heritage resource was created to test a novel concept called DISPLAYS (Digital Library Services for Playing with Antiquity and Shared Heritage), which provides digital heritage content: creation, archival, exposition, presentation and interaction services for digital heritage collections. Based on DISPLAYS, a specific digital heritage resource was created to validate its concept and, more importantly, to act as a test bed to validate workflow management for digital heritage resources. This DISPLAYS type system implementation was called the Reanimating Cultural Heritage resource, for which three core components are the archival, retrieval and presentation components. To validate workflow management and its concepts, another limited version of these reanimating cultural heritage components was implemented within a workflow management host to test if the workflow technology is a viable choice for managing control and dataflow within a digital heritage system: this was successfully proved

Supporting High Coupling and User- Interface Flexibility

Abstract. Collaborative systems that automate the sharing of programmer-defined user interfaces offer limited coupling flexibility, typically forcing all users of an application to share all aspects of the user interfaces. Those that automatically support high coupling flexibility are tied to a narrow set of predefined user-interfaces. We have developed a framework that provides high-level and flexible coupling support for arbitrary, programmer-defined user interfaces. The framework refines an abstract layered model of collaboration with structured application layers and automatic acquisition, transformation, and processing of updates. It has been used to easily provide flexible coupling in complex, existing single-user software and shown to support all known ways to share user-interfaces. Coupling flexibility comes at the cost of a small amount of additional programming. We have carefully crafted the framework to ensure that this overhead is proportional to the degree of coupling flexibility desired